getloadavg(3) -- Linux man page

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The
Fn getloadavg
function returns the number of processes in the system run queue
averaged over various periods of time.
Up to
Fa nelem
samples are retrieved and assigned to successive elements of
Fa loadavg Ns Bq .
The system imposes a maximum of 3 samples, representing averages
over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes, respectively.

DIAGNOSTICS

If the load average was unobtainable, -1 is returned; otherwise,
the number of samples actually retrieved is returned.